Available online at www.jmle.org
The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s
Journal of Media Literacy Education 2:2 (2010) 124 - 150
Fostering Cross-Generational Dialogues about the Ethics of Online Life
Katie Davis, Shira Lee Katz, Rafi Santo, Carrie James
Abstract
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Today’s youth inhabit new digital spaces that seem foreign to many adults. These spaces offer unprecedented opportunities for interpersonal connection, but community can break down when people are emboldened by anonymity through pathways that are fast and
highly public. Interested in how teens and adults view these ethically charged issues, our three partner organizations – Common Sense
Media, the GoodPlay Project, and Global Kids – convened a three-week long series of online conversations with more than 150 parents,
teachers, and teens. Our analysis of these conversations revealed that adults exhibited stronger and more consistent patterns of moral and
ethical thinking than youth, who tended to show greater concern for the personal consequences of their online actions. These findings
suggest that adults have an important role to play in helping teens to become responsible digital citizens.
Keywords: ethics, digital citizenship, online discussion, digital literacy, social networks
Introduction
“It’s like [in the movie] Spiderman … with great
power comes great responsibility.” This is the voice of
Henry, a 14-year-old boy who is featured in a curricular video produced by Common Sense Media, a national non-profit organization that works on the family,
school, and policy levels to help parents and educators
teach young people how to be safe and smart online. By
invoking Uncle Ben from the 2002 movie Spiderman,
14-year-old Henry points to the immense power afforded by digital media. New media technologies have
expanded youths’ powers of creation, self-expression,
and communication. Many youth are putting their powers to good use, developing their writing skills through
fan fiction and organizing rallies around important social issues like immigration, gay rights, and climate
change. Yet, as the news media often remind us, some
youth abuse their powers. The story of the Massachusetts high school student who committed suicide after
months of harassment by classmates through text messaging and Facebook is just one example (Eckholm and
Zezima 2010). Though bullying is by no means a new
phenomenon among young people, its effects appear to
be intensified by new media technologies that make it
easy to spread rumors farther, faster, and more surreptitiously than ever before. When the power of technology
is abused in this way, the effects can be disastrous.
Why some youth use their digital powers responsibly while others do not remains unclear. Little is known about the moral and ethical stances that
young people adopt as they contend with the unique
dimensions of online life. To shed light on this underresearched area, three partner organizations – Common Sense Media, the GoodPlay Project, and Global
Kids – convened the Focus Dialogues, a series of online
asynchronous discussions about digital ethics. During
the course of three weeks, a diverse group of teens and
adults came together virtually to discuss five categories
of issues that are particularly salient online: identity,
privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation (James et al. 2009). The decision to include
both adults and teens in these conversations came from
our groups’ recognition that adults are often absent from
youths’ online spaces (Bradley 2005; Hobbs 2006; Palfrey and Gasser 2008), a concerning reality when one
considers the important role that adults have traditionally played in promoting the moral and ethical stances
of young people (Fischman, Solomon, Greenspan, and
Gardner 2004).
In this article, we report on findings from our
analysis of the Focus Dialogues discussions. Many of
the adults and teens expressed common perspectives
with respect to an individual’s rights and responsibilities online, though our findings did uncover notable
distinctions in the way adults and teens approached the
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ethically charged questions and dilemmas we posed to
them. We consider how these findings might inform
scholars’ and educators’ efforts to expand the field of
media literacy education to take into account youths’
interactive experiences with new media technologies.
In the following literature review, we 1) explore the distinct features of today’s online environments; 2) identify the salient ethical issues that arise within these environments, as well as how youth approach them; and
3) consider how the core principles of media literacy
education could be used to promote youths’ ethical
thinking online.
Literature Review
The New Digital Media Landscape
With the advent of web 2.0 tools, the Internet
no longer resembles earlier forms of mass media, such
as broadcast television and radio, in its one-way delivery of content from producer to consumer. Social media tools such as blogs and wikis have restructured the
traditional relationship between author and audience by
making it possible for audience members to respond to
and expand upon the work of authors and thus become
authors in their own right (Jenkins 2006). This interactive dynamic of web 2.0 has given rise to what Jenkins
calls a “participatory culture” that engages people in active collaboration around common interests. The types
of collaborative practices supported by social media are
numerous and wide-ranging. One can observe Harry
Potter fan fiction authors critiquing each other’s work
on sites like fanfiction.net and LiveJournal; game enthusiasts forming cooperative guilds in multiplayer online
games like World of Warcraft; and extended families
sharing their pictures and daily updates on Facebook.
Today’s youth constitute the first generation to
come of age in the context of this new media landscape.
Indeed, much of their social development appears to be
mediated by mobile phones, social networking sites, and
instant messaging services. These digital technologies
provide youth with new opportunities to express their
identities, as well as avenues to explore their personal
interests in online communities. Ito et al. (2009) found
that today’s youth enjoy unprecedented opportunities to
explore a broad range of interests. Whether they choose
to try their hand at photography or music composition,
young people can readily connect with a community of
people who share their interests.
Digital technologies also play a prominent role
in the way youth experience their friendships and romantic relationships (boyd 2007). With “always-on/
always-on-you” communication devices such as mobile phones, friends and romantic partners can maintain a constant connection to each other despite being
physically separated (Turkle 2008). And, through social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, they
can display these personal connections publicly (boyd
2007).
The mediated forms of communication enjoyed
by today’s youth exhibit distinct features that set them
apart from face-to-face communication. Exchanges
through text messaging, Facebook, or email do not require people to occupy the same geographic or temporal space in order to communicate with each other. As
a result, certain social cues that typically accompany
face-to-face conversations, such as facial expressions
and tone of voice, are typically missing from textbased, asynchronous forms of communication, though
emoticons and punctuation marks are sometimes used
as imperfect substitutes. Absent these social cues, it
is easier for individuals to achieve a sense of distance
from the people with whom they communicate online.
Without having to confront others directly, they may
feel less inhibited and say or do things they otherwise
would not say or do offline (Suler 2004).
boyd (2007) discusses four technical properties of networked publics that complicate the sense of
disinhibition associated with mediated communication.
Persistence concerns the difficulty of erasing information that is posted online, while searchability pertains
to the ease of retrieving that information, particularly
with the emergence of powerful search engines like
Google. Once found, this information can be replicated
with little effort, and scalability allows for the possibility that it will reach a vast audience. According to boyd,
these technical properties give rise to three distinct social dynamics: invisible audiences, collapsed contexts,
and the blurring of public and private realms. With respect to invisible audiences, boyd observes that some
of the audiences who will eventually see a person’s
online content are not visible or thought of when that
person initially creates material for the web. Second,
due to the collapsing of contexts online (Facebook is a
prime example), it becomes an increasing challenge to
maintain boundaries between different aspects of one’s
life. Lastly, the blurring of public and private realms
makes it difficult to ensure that information intended
for a few close relations does not inadvertently become
accessible to a much broader audience, especially as
web 2.0 platforms may change privacy settings after
content is posted.
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Ethical Dimensions of Online Life
The disinhibition effects of computer-mediated
communication, together with the technical properties
and social dynamics associated with networked publics, give rise to distinct ethical issues online. James
et al. (2009) have identified five categories of ethical
issues that are particularly salient in online environments. These ethical “fault lines” are: identity, privacy,
ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. Identity-related issues pertain to the authenticity
and integrity of one’s online self-representations. Recognizing that identity play can provide opportunities
for personal growth, James et al. nevertheless contend
that youth must be mindful of the boundary between
play and deception. Privacy issues arise when individuals are confronted with decisions about how to manage
their own and others’ personal information online. With
respect to ownership and authorship, the ability to create works collaboratively and appropriate the work of
others complicates the way people give and receive
credit for their creations. The fourth ethical fault line,
credibility, relates to the strategies individuals use to
assess others’ trustworthiness and to establish their own
trustworthiness online. Finally, participation addresses
the rights and responsibilities that individuals assume
as they participate in online communities.
Researchers have recently begun to investigate
the way in which young people conceive of and approach these ethical issues. Through in-depth interviews
with over 60 “digital youth” – young people ages 15-25
who are highly engaged in one or more online activities, such as blogging, social networking, and gaming
– researchers on the GoodPlay Project identified three
ways of thinking that exist, to varying degrees, among
youth online (James and Flores, in preparation). Their
findings suggest a ladder of thinking that bears a resemblance to stage theories, such as Kohlberg’s (1981,
1984), which posit that individuals move through a series of increasingly complex stages of moral development during the course of childhood, adolescence, and
into adulthood. The three ways of thinking are: 1) Consequence thinking, 2) Moral thinking, and 3) Ethical
Thinking.
Consequence thinking. James and Flores (in
preparation) argue that consequence thinking is most
prevalent among youth when they discuss their online
activities. Consequence thinking is focused on the potential consequences to oneself, positive or negative,
associated with different actions online.
Moral thinking. James and Flores discuss moral
thinking as somewhat prevalent among youth. In this
way of thinking, youth display respect for others and
possess a belief in principles such as fairness and justice, and the Golden Rule of the Internet (“Online, do
unto others as you would like them to do to you”).
While moral thinking suggests awareness of and respect for known others, it does not necessarily entail
awareness of the group or community.
Ethical thinking. Ethical thinking is characterized as the highest plane of thinking and is evident
when someone thinks about the good of the group,
community, society, or the larger world. Ethical thinking involves taking the perspective of others, awareness of one’s roles and responsibilities in the online
communities in which one participates, and reflection
about the more global harms or benefits of one’s actions to communities at large. James and Flores found
that this way of thinking is rarely displayed by youth
when they discuss their online activities.
The distinction made here between moral and
ethical thinking is grounded in psychological—as opposed to religious or philosophical—conceptions of
morality and ethics. To explain this distinction, Gardner (2006, in press) uses the concepts of “neighborly
morality” and the “ethics of roles.” He describes neighborly morality as constituting those understandings and
relations that govern a person’s connections to those
whom he sees every day and with whom he has a reciprocal relationship. In contrast, the ethics of roles relate
to those individuals—both known and unknown—to
whom relations are more formal, more tied to roles, and
may not even involve person-to-person contact. Gardner’s distinction between morality and ethics departs
somewhat from traditional social scientific accounts,
which have typically placed morality in the realm of
conduct and ethics in the realm of reflection (cf. Gibson and Landwehr-Brown 2009; Hague 1998). At the
same time, these accounts further delimit the boundary between morality and ethics by associating the
former with conduct deemed acceptable by specific
groups (e.g. Christians, Confucians), whereas ethics is
described as an attempt to extract universal principles
governing moral conduct (Lee 1928). It is this distinction—between the particularity of morality and the abstraction of ethics—that Gardner evokes in his account
of neighborly morality and the ethics of roles.
Though in the past, the ethics of roles typically did not assume relevance until adulthood, this has
changed in the Internet era (Gardner, in press). Wheth-
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er they intend to or not, today’s youth may assume a
variety of roles as they participate online. Given their
potential reach, these roles call on youth to consider
how their actions may affect a broad community that
extends beyond their group of close relations. Whether
youth answer this call depends on their ability and inclination to engage in the third way of thinking—ethical thinking. The research conducted by the GoodPlay
Project suggests that, while youth may be capable of
ethical thinking online, few are inclined to actually engage in it.
Role of Media Literacy Education (MLE) in Promoting
Ethical Thinking
Educators have begun to recognize the need to
provide youth with guidance as they navigate digital
terrain that has, to this point, been marked by a lack
of explicit norms of behavior and a scarcity of adult
mentors. One field, in particular, that recognizes this
need is media literacy education (MLE). The National
Association for Media Literacy Education’s Core Principles for Media Literacy Education (CPMLE) reflect
the way in which MLE has evolved to address the opportunities and challenges associated with today’s distinct media landscape (NAMLE 2007). According to
these principles, a central purpose of MLE is to develop
students’ ability to engage in active inquiry and critical
thinking about their experiences with all forms of media. These critical thinking skills are important when
trying to decipher the intent behind targeted advertising
on MySpace, for instance, or the quality of information
produced by an online blogger. It is particularly important that youth acquire these types of skills in light of
the complex ethical issues that arise as they navigate
relationships online, synthesize vast amounts of information on the web, and become active online participants.
To develop students’ critical thinking skills,
MLE educators adopt a pedagogical approach in which
adults and youth co-construct knowledge through reciprocal, authentic dialogue. As youth use digital media increasingly across a wide variety of contexts,
these conversations do not have to be limited to the
classroom. Indeed, Hobbs (2008) argues that there is
an opportunity now for MLE to occur in all facets of
life, across platforms, and with people (e.g. parents,
teachers, friends) from various parts of youths’ lives.
Through such discussions, young people are more
likely to encounter and grapple with topics that are
meaningful and authentic to them. With respect to their
online activities, youth might be encouraged to share
the ethical dilemmas they have faced in various online
spaces and explore appropriate courses of action with
others who have confronted comparable situations.
In short, both the substantive focus of and pedagogical
approach promoted by MLE—and the CPMLE framework in particular—provide a framing that is wellsuited to the development of educational interventions
designed to promote youths’ ethical thinking online.
The Research Study
In this article, we describe a particular educational intervention whose design aligns with many of
the core principles for media literacy education. In our
empirical investigation of this program, we sought to
determine the extent to which the three ways of thinking identified by James and Flores (in preparation)
would emerge within the context of online dialogues
involving groups of teens and adults. Given the crossgenerational nature of these dialogues, we also sought
to compare teens’ and adults’ dominant ways of thinking about the ethics of online life. Drawing on moral
development theory as well as more recent work concerning youths’ online practices, we hypothesized that
differences would emerge between the two groups.
Theorists of moral development contend that
individuals’ moral reasoning abilities become increasingly complex as they move from childhood, to
adolescence, and into adulthood (Damon 1988; Kohlberg1981, 1984; Piaget 1932). Kohlberg (1981, 1984)
claimed that individuals begin with an egocentric view
of morality, equating goodness with that which avoids
punishment. Gradually, their perspective shifts outward
from the self to reciprocal relationships, the social system, and, finally, universal ethical principles. This view
of moral development raises the prospect that the adults
and teens who participated in the online dialogues may
approach the issues under discussion in different ways.
Recent work around youths’ online practices supports
this hypothesis. Scholars observe that adults are often
absent from young people’s online social spaces, whether because youth actively seek out adult-free spaces online, or because adults intentionally refrain from engaging with youth around new media technologies, fearing
they will appear incompetent beside technically savvy
“digital natives” (Bradley 2005; Hobbs 2006; Palfrey
and Gasser 2008). In either case, the result is the same.
Youth are left largely to themselves to contend with and
develop their own normative responses to the various
ethical issues they encounter online. This state of af-
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fairs is concerning given the important role that adult
mentors play in promoting youths’ moral and ethical
stances (Fischman et al. 2004).
In this article, we add to the emerging research
on patterns of moral and ethical thinking among youth
and adults in online contexts by reporting on findings
from our analysis of the Focus Dialogues, a three-week
program that brought together adults and teens in a virtual space to discuss issues surrounding the ethics of
online life. In our analysis, we seek to explore the following two research questions:
Research Question 1: What patterns of moral and
ethical thinking do adults and teens display as they
engage in online conversations about digital ethics?
Research Question 2: Can such cross-generational discussions promote genuine dialogue between
teens and adults?
Methodology
Program Structure and Goals
Three partner organizations, Common Sense
Media, the GoodPlay Project, and Global Kids1, designed the Focus Dialogues with the aim of bringing
together parents, teachers, and teens in a text-based,
asynchronous online environment where they could
discuss emerging social and ethical issues related to
digital media, technology use, and online life. The dialogues were predicated upon a belief held by our organizations that there is a lack of cross-generational conversation regarding digital media usage (Bradley 2005;
Palfrey and Gasser 2008). In an analysis of a previous,
youth-only iteration of the Focus Dialogues held in
March 2007, a lack of mentorship and communication
between adults and teens on these issues emerged as a
key theme (Pasnik 2007).
Members of the three partner organizations created the Focus Dialogues to function simultaneously as
an educational program and a research project. From
an educational standpoint, they wanted to provide teens
and adults with the opportunity to share their perspectives on the salient ethical issues associated with online
life. From a research perspective, they had an interest in documenting these perspectives and comparing
teens’ and adults’ moral and ethical stances online.
email outreach directed at prior program participants
and the organizations’ affiliates, posts to various online
educator listservs, direct email to interested parties, and
promotion of the program using social media such as
Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Incentives for “top participants” were offered to teens and adults, contingent
upon exemplary participation. Top teen participants
received a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com, while
top adult participants received a Common Sense Media
Education Kit, valued at $100, in addition to a $25 gift
certificate to Amazon.com.
A total of 277 people, representing 19 countries
and 24 states within the United States, registered for the
Focus Dialogues on the Global Kids website. A small
subset of nine teen participants had been prior participants in either the first round of Focus Dialogues that
took place in 2007, or were active or former participants in Global Kids programs. Of the 277 participants,
152 people actively participated, as defined by having posted to at least one discussion thread during the
three-week period. These active participants averaged
16 posts over the course of the dialogues, with 54%
posting 10 or more times. This group of high-frequency
posters accounted for approximately 90% of the total
posts.
Active participants included 82 teens (39 females, 43 males) between the ages of 12 and 21 years
(M = 16.5 years), and 70 adults (59 females, 11 males)
between the ages of 22 and 55 years (M = 42.3 years).
A sizable minority were non-U.S. citizens, including 13
teens and 10 adults. The sample was racially and ethnically diverse, as well (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Demographic characteristics of participant
Participants
The three partner organizations recruited participants through their respective organizational networks. Recruitment methods were varied, and included 1 Global Kids runs educational programs that aim to promote
face-to-face outreach via afterschool programs, mass youth voices on social and global issues.
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Data collection
The Focus Dialogues lasted three weeks, during
which time participants engaged in both structured and
unstructured asynchronous online conversation. The
program’s designers devised the structured conversations around question prompts that addressed the issues
that the GoodPlay Project identified as being particularly salient online: identity, privacy, ownership and
authorship, credibility, and participation (James et al.
2009). On each day of the 21-day program, participants
logged into the Focus Dialogues website and, prior to
encountering existing conversation threads, were presented with one of these prompts framed as a “Debate
of the Day” (see Figure 2 for a sample prompt).
Figure 2: Sample “Debate of the Day” dialogue from the
Focus Dialogues
Dillema: Photo Sharing on Facebook
Initial prompts centered on the social effects of
digital media, such as what participants perceived as
general benefits and drawbacks, and then progressed to
specific ethically-oriented subjects. The topics moved
outward from the individual to the societal realm, with
questions about identity and self representation followed
by those relating to privacy, moving into credibility and
trust, creativity and ownership of intellectual property,
and finally into public and community participation. The
final set of prompts aimed to broaden the conversation
again, asking questions about if and where perspectives
aligned across generations, what common ground
could be established, and how it might be achieved. See
Appendix A for a complete list of measures.
While participants saw the pre-determined
prompts as soon as they logged in, the online space
also allowed for and encouraged organic, userdriven conversation topics. Indeed, user-generated
conversation threads outnumbered threads based on
prompts by a ratio of approximately two to one, creating
a space that, while framed by the program designers,
was not limited by them.
The three partner organizations did not
participate themselves. Rather, their involvement was
limited primarily to responding to technical queries
from participants in private help discussion threads,
monitoring the discussions to ensure that a safe space
was being maintained, and sending occasional group
emails to promote participation – particularly among
inactive participants.
Participants engaged actively in the Focus
Dialogues, creating 157 unique conversation threads
and responding to 21 structured prompts. In total,
participants posted 2,869 times over the course of the
three weeks, with messages varying in length from oneline responses to multi-paragraph tracts. Participation
rates, however, varied along generational lines.
Despite higher registration rates (165 adults registered
as compared to 112 teens), teens accounted for the bulk
of all posts (73%). Teens also maintained higher rates
of conversation thread creation, with 72% of all threads
created by teen participants. This discrepancy between
adult and teen participation may be attributed to a
number of factors, such as teens’ greater fluency with
the technical and social aspects of online conversations,
and adults’ greater time constraints in the offline world.
Online Dialogue Platform
For the Focus Dialogues, the program organizers
employed a custom online discussion tool called Small
Group Dialogue (SGD)2. SGD boasts a number of
unique features that made it a promising technical
context for the project. SGD, as its name implies,
divides participants into small discussion groups
within a broader dialogue, as opposed to grouping all
users into one large, undifferentiated mass. The system
administrator determines the size of groups, as well
as precise dates to mark the beginning and end of the
discussion period. In the case of the Focus Dialogues,
there were approximately 90 participants per group
There are numerous other noted use cases of the SGD tool in
promoting deliberative discourse around substantive issues (see
Noveck 2004; Pyser and Weiss 2008, and Yankelovich, Rosell,
Gantwerk, and Friedman 2006),
2
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with three total groups participating over three weeks.
A lack of active and interventionist moderation
encouraged greater participant ownership of the
space. In addition, participants were asked to select
consistent pseudonyms as a means of lessening levels
of anonymity. These design features helped to mitigate
the pitfalls associated with online conversation, such
as belligerent “flamewars,” or vitriolic personal
exchanges that can detract from productive discussion
(Dery 1994). In addition, the shared timeframe
prevented participants from experiencing the sense of
disorientation that commonly results from joining a
conversation midstream (Pyser and Weiss 2007).
The program organizers felt that the online
context was particularly well suited to the Focus
Dialogues due to the cross-generational nature of
the project. We had concerns that traditional adultyouth power dynamics that exist during face-to-face
interaction might be a barrier to open and honest
conversation. To mitigate these effects, we chose an
online context in which the participants did not already
know each other, and where the usual demarcations
of power and status are not immediately apparent.
The SGD software was, however, modified so that
participants could distinguish between adults and teens
via an unobtrusive tag next to a participant’s username.
Figure 3: The Small Group Dialogue environment
Data Analysis
We focused our analysis on the prompts
developed by members of the GoodPlay Project.
We followed an analytic strategy that was both emic
and etic, meaning that we drew on the words of the
dialogue participants themselves (emic) as well as on
our interpretations of these words (etic). Drawing on
findings from the GoodPlay Project as well as relevant
literature on moral development, we created an initial
“start list” of etic codes (Miles and Huberman 1994)
to categorize participants’ ways of thinking as either
consequence-based, moral, or ethical. We coded
participants’ statements as consequence-based, or
individualistic, if they focused on a concern for the
personal consequences of a particular situation or
course of action. Statements that took into account the
effects of one’s actions on people known offline or with
whom one interacts online were considered evidence of
moral thinking. For example, if a teen said she would
not share a friend’s personal information online out of
respect for her friend’s privacy, such a statement would
be coded as an instance of moral thinking. Lastly,
participants were classified as ethical thinkers if they
thought in abstract, disinterested terms about the effects
of their actions on the online community at large.
Next, we drew on our line-by-line readings of
the discussion threads to create a series of emic codes
that captured emergent themes (Strauss and Corbin
1990). In the discussions about illegal downloading,
for instance, a line-by-line reading of participants’
responses revealed a broad range of justifications for
engaging in this practice, from claims that teens do not
have enough money to buy music, to assertions that
the onus is on the creators to protect their content. Two
researchers were involved in this coding process and
met frequently to discuss emergent themes as well as
areas of alignment and misalignment within and across
the groups of teens and adults.
Findings
The adults and teens who participated in the
Focus Dialogues expressed a number of common
perspectives with respect to an individual’s rights and
responsibilities online. At the same time, we ascertained
that, compared to teens, adults generally exhibited
stronger and more consistent patterns of moral and
ethical thinking in the way they responded to the online
prompts, although certain prompts did elicit impressive
ethical thinking on the part of many teens. So that we
can provide an in-depth account of adults’ and teens’
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responses, we report here on findings from three of the
21 prompts that the program organizers presented to
participants over the course of the three-week program.
The GoodPlay Project designed 15 of the 21 prompts to
directly address the five ethical “fault lines” of identity,
privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and
participation. The prompts we discuss in this section
center around two of these fault lines: ownership and
authorship, and participation.
The themes that emerged from our analysis of
these select prompts are representative of the major
themes that we identified across the entire group of
prompts. Specifically, the first two prompts illustrate
adults’ tendency to draw on moral and ethical ways
of thinking to a greater degree than teens, while the
third prompt reveals that many teens did, at times,
display ethical thinking that was on par with the
adult participants. We conclude this section with an
examination of specific exchanges that illustrate that
the online dialogues provided adults and teens with a
unique opportunity to share their perspectives with one
another and find common ground.
Perspectives on Illegal Downloading
The program organizers attempted to uncover
participants’ views on ownership and authorship by
asking them to respond to two quotes on the topic of
illegal downloading (see Appendix A, Day 10). The
quotes represent the perspectives of two young people
who had participated in the GoodPlay Project’s study
of “digital youth” – young people ages 15-25 who are
highly engaged in one or more online activities, such
as blogging, social networking, and gaming. In the first
quote, 15 year-old Trey3 explains why he sees nothing
wrong with downloading music illegally. In the second
quote, 22 year-old Carlos, a musician, discusses the
negative effects of illegal downloading for musicians
and the music industry. In addition to responding
to these quotes, participants were asked to reflect on
circumstances under which it may be permissible to
download and share files, and circumstances under
which it is not. (See Appendix B for an excerpt of one
of the discussion threads on illegal downloading.)
Teens were split about the acceptability of
illegal downloading. Of the 25 teens who took part in
the discussion, eight were generally accepting of it,
seven were against it, and six expressed ambivalence4.
Of the ambivalent teens, four said they engage in
downloading anyway. The 10 adults who responded to
the prompt were somewhat less divided. Only one adult
was generally supportive of illegal downloading, while
four were against it and two expressed conflict about
the issue5.
Individualistic, consequence thinking was
most prevalent among the eight teens who believed
downloading is acceptable and the six teens who
expressed ambivalence. Instead of considering the
effects of illegal downloading on others, these teens
focused primarily on their own needs and desires. For
instance, Neil, a 17 year-old boy from the Midwestern
United States, wrote, “As a teen I don’t have much
money to spend on music and movies and so I just
download them.” Andrea, a 19 year-old girl from
Mexico, echoed this sentiment: “I too pirate because
I can’t afford most of these things. One can’t simply
afford all the latest albums, DVDs and software.” For
Neil and Andrea, their inability to pay for content
serves as sufficient justification for engaging in illegal
downloading.
Another popular teen argument in favor of illegal
downloading pertains to the ease and convenience of
accessing content online. Several of the teens who
offered this explanation were living in countries in
which it is difficult to access content any other way.
Azhar, a 14 year-old girl from Oman, explained, “We
don’t get [movies] here, I have to travel 1.5 hour to go to
the capital and watch new movies in the cinema or buy
them from there as well, so it’s much easier to watch
them online.” Similarly, Trevor, age 14, discussed the
restrictions he faces living in Canada. “I download most
of the TV shows I watch mostly because they aren’t
broadcast on any of the TV channels I have and because
I’m in Canada I can’t watch them on Hulu.” U.S-based
teens also cited the ease and convenience of accessing
content online. Nadira, an 18 year-old girl from the
Northeastern United States, was one of four teens who
download illegally despite their ambivalence about the
practice. She reflected, “I usually like buying my music
to give myself some mental ease, but sometimes when
I’m doing something last minute (like a film analysis)
I will just download the film or watch it on a source on
the internet.” Like Azhar and Trevor, Nadira’s decision
to engage in illegal downloading is based on the desire
to satisfy her own personal interests. Indeed, even
when she purchases music legally, she does so “to give
myself some mental ease,” a decidedly self-focused
point of view.
All names in this section are pseudonyms.
The remaining 4 teens did not express a clear viewpoint.
5
The remaining 3 adults did not express a clear viewpoint.
3
4
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The teens who opposed illegal downloading
were more likely to display ethical thinking that aligned
with the statements made by most adults. These teens
reasoned that illegal downloading is unfair to creators
and is the equivalent of stealing. Layla, a 16 year-old
girl from the West Coast of the United States, explained,
“Its not right to file share and download things illegally
because then the authors/creators are not getting full
credit like they do when you buy their CD from a store
etc.” Instead of focusing on herself, Layla considers the
impact that illegal downloading has on an entire group
of creators whom she does not know personally but
whose rights she nevertheless respects. Evelyn, an 18
year-old girl from the Northeastern United States, also
displays ethical thinking in her discussion of illegal
downloading:
Pirating, illegal downloading, whatever you
want to call it...in my mind, it’s just as much
stealing as walking out of Walmart with a cd
that you didn’t pay for. Sure maybe the artist
has “too much money” or something. But does
that give you a right to steal? I don’t think so.
Teens like Layla and Evelyn reflect the
viewpoints of most adult respondents. In fact, only
Leslie, a 55 year-old woman from the West Coast of the
United States, saw little wrong with illegal downloading.
She argued, “You cannot blame people from doing it
when it is so readily available.” The other adults, like
48 year-old Amanda, also from the West Coast, equated
the practice with stealing and considered its effects on
creators: “My view is that [illegal downloading] is no
different than walking into a store and shoplifting a
CD. It is stealing...At the very least, I think it is very
unethical, and is unfair to the artists.”
Deception in Online Gameplay
In addition to asking participants to respond
to quotes from young people, the program organizers
also presented them with hypothetical scenarios. In
one of these scenarios, they were asked to imagine
that fellow players of an online multi-player game
were taking advantage of new players by selling them
worthless green rocks, called pseudogems, for very
high prices (see Appendix A, Day 13). The prompt
asked participants if they would join in and sell the
pseudogems to new players. Through this dilemma, the
program organizers aimed to probe adults’ and teens’
conceptions of individuals’ rights and responsibilities
and the place of morality and ethics in the context of an
online game world.
The teen sample was fairly evenly split on
whether or not to sell the pseudogems. Of the 34 teens
who participated in this discussion, 14 said they would
sell the pseudogems, 11 said they would not, and nine
were unsure or did not respond in a direct or clear way.
While only seven adults responded to the dilemma, all
of them agreed that selling the pseudogems was wrong.
The teens who would sell the pseudogems
defended their decision by using a combination of “it’s
just a game” and “buyer beware” arguments. Jenson, a
15 year-old boy from the West Coast, reflected the view
of several teens when he commented, “well it is just
a game. Scams are going to happen all the time. The
new players will need to learn sometime or another.”
Similarly, 17 year-old Brian, also from the West Coast,
justified his position with the following argument:
Its just a game. the point of the game is to
progress yourself and get up there in that game.
we could sell the gems and its up to the person
to buy it with what ever they have. you cant
really compare this to a real life event because
the game is just a game, it isnt real life.
Both Jenson and Brian believe that, because “it’s just a
game,” they bear no responsibility to other players. This
type of individualistic thinking was prevalent among
the teens who said they would sell the pseudogems.
The majority of teens who would not sell the
pseudogems showed evidence of moral thinking in
their reasoning. Like most of the adults who responded
to this dilemma, these teens referred to moral principles
such as fairness, respect for others, and the time that
other players have committed to the game. Vivian, an
18 year-old girl from Peru, displayed moral thinking in
her response to another teen who said he would have no
qualms about selling the pseudogems:
Personally I would never do that to newbies;
I live by the principle of doing as I please as
long as I don’t disrespect someone else. And
scamming another person is, well, a BIG sign
of disrespect! I’d feel like I’m using a newbie
for profit!
In addition to moral thinking, ethical thinking
was also apparent in the responses of two teens and
two adults who would not sell the pseudogems. Jason,
a 16 year-old boy from the West Coast, considered the
situation from the point of view of the entire game
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community and concluded that selling the pseudogems
“would be immoral and the cycle of things would
continue.” Cheryl, a 38 year-old woman from the
Southwestern United States, argued that experienced
players should collaborate with newbies in order to
create a “more robust learning experience for everyone.”
Roles and Responsibilities in Online Communities
We asked participants to reflect on their roles
and responsibilities in online communities and how
they compare to the roles and responsibilities they
assume offline. Most of the 38 teens and 15 adults who
responded to this prompt named multiple responsibilities,
including responsibilities to themselves, to others, and
to the online communities in which they participate.
In discussing their approach to online participation,
several teens and adults underscored the importance
of maintaining consistency between their online and
offline worlds. These participants spoke about holding
consistent values and responsibilities across spheres,
and behaving in similar ways.
The most frequently mentioned responsibility,
cited by 12 teens and five adults, was to think and act
morally in online spaces. These participants believed
that it is important to treat others with whom you interact
online with respect and courtesy; to be supportive and
help others; and to operate with integrity. Neil, age 17,
reflected on his approach to online participation in the
following way:
By agreeing to be in an online community I
believe all members should first be respectful of
each other. This is no different offline as every
individual earns the same amount of respect.
Next, there shouldn’t be any bullying/trolling
to hurt someone’s feelings. If someone is wrong
about something acknowledge it and move on.
No need to keep on bantering the person just as
you wouldn’t do so offline.
Neil’s final comment, that one should not say things
online that one would not say face-to-face, was echoed
by several teens and adults and might be considered the
“Golden Rule of the Internet.”
While not the most prevalent form of thinking,
ethical thinking was found among eight teens, or
nearly a quarter of teens who responded to the prompt.
This occurrence matches the proportion of adults
who mentioned ethical responsibilities online. Some
participants spoke about a responsibility to contribute
to community-level benefits and prevent communitylevel harms – for example, by collaborating in prosocial
ways or not quitting in the middle of a multiplayer
game. Cheryl, age 38, displayed ethical thinking in her
response:
I think communities are collaborative so my
primary responsibility in any community is
to contribute to the cohesion and sense of
camaraderie. I think it is my responsibility to
learn the “rules” of the community – the way
group members interact, communicate and
regard one another.
Other participants spoke about a responsibility to
adhere to principles of right vs. wrong. They stressed
the importance of being truthful, presenting an authentic
self to others, respecting copyright, and not engaging
in hate speech. In fact, four teens argued, in an ethical
way, that our responsibilities are greater online due
to properties of mediated communication, such as
opportunities for anonymity and fewer accountability
mechanisms.
As with other prompts, the primary differences
between adults and teens emerged around the
prevalence of consequence thinking. While none of
the adults named responsibilities to or for themselves,
12 teens (or nearly a third) engaged in individualistic,
consequence-based thinking when discussing their
responsibilities online. For example, Owen, a 17 yearold boy from the West Coast, echoed the feelings of
several teens when he wrote, “I think that being a
responsible person online means that you do not give
your personal information online.” For teens like
Owen, one’s primary responsibility online is to oneself,
whether that means protecting one’s privacy by not
sharing too much personal information, or taking
steps to “be safe” and protect oneself from potentially
dangerous consequences.
Two teens used individualistic, consequence
thinking to argue that they have little to no responsibilities
online. Chris, a 16 year-old boy from the West Coast,
claimed, “i dont think anyone has a responsibility for
the internet and the communities people participate in
because the internet is a way for people to do what they
want without gettin in trouble.” Unlike the many teens
and adults who spoke about the intertwinement of online
and offline worlds, Chris sees a disjunction between
these two contexts. His perception that consequences
are suspended online leads him to endorse the view that
individuals have license to behave as they please.
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Finding Common Ground
The program organizers hoped this initiative
would provide adults and teens with the opportunity
to share their perspectives with each other and engage
in genuine dialogue. Our analysis of the discussion
threads suggests that these goals were indeed met.
In one instance, Cathy, a 38 year-old woman from
the Northeast, started her own discussion thread and
solicited the opinions of teens regarding the “digital
footprints” that individuals create online:
I’ll be the first to admit that I did some things
when I was a teen that I’m happy to forget as an
adult. I’m glad there are no permanent records!
I’m curious what teens think about the fact that
everything you post online could be around for
generations to come. Do you worry at all about
that? Are you concerned that someday your
kids might see what you were doing? Or is that
just something that parents worry about for our
kids? Are you careful about what you share on
places like MySpace or Facebook?
This prompt elicited responses from several adults, who
shared their own concerns about the content that young
people post online. Mira, a 31 year-old woman from the
West Coast, spoke about an experience she had once had
interviewing a job candidate. The candidate, a recent
college graduate, impressed Mira with her resume and
articulateness during the interview. However, Mira was
prompted to rethink her decision to hire the candidate
when a Google search uncovered inappropriate content
on her Facebook page. She asked participants what they
would have done had they been in a similar situation.
The teens who responded to Cathy’s thread
discussed their understanding of the permanence of
their digital footprints, as well as the strategies they
have adopted to protect their privacy online. For
instance, Julia, a 16 year-old girl from the West Coast,
explained her approach to posting content online:
Oh, I always worry about what I post online
coming back to bite me later on, haha. It’s
partly why I’ve decided to keep my identity more
underwraps on certain sites...I’m very aware
that the things I post on some sites are public
and can be stored on other sites as cached
without notification.
While these teens expressed confidence in their own
ability to manage their digital footprints online, they did
express concern about the ability of younger children
to do the same. After describing her own approach to
posting content online, Julia reflected, “I know there
are even middle school kids out there who post tons
of personal information online via social networking
profiles and blogs without a thought to how this could
affect them in the future.”
This discussion thread gave teens like Julia the
opportunity to inform adults about their awareness of
and concerns about posting content online. For their
part, the adults provided teens with insight into their
own concerns and uncertainties, such as how they
should handle the information they uncover from a
Google search of prospective employees.
In another discussion thread that also dealt
with the limits of posting personal information online,
Rosaria, a 54 year-old woman from the Northeast,
reflected on her perception of a generational divide
with respect to conceptions of privacy:
I think one of the hardest things about this
generationally, is a completely different sense
of Privacy. To me, privacy means not wanting
anyone else except those FEW with whom I
decide to share, to know. Putting it on line has
no guarantees/no personal control. It’s not that
Mom wants to know necessarily, but how can
you prevent it? Why would you dare someone
to look? You have no idea what gets back to
anyone or who will see it. To me that’s not
private, it’s extremely public. I find that lack of
personal control and not knowing a bit scary.
Rosaria’s post prompted Jeff, an 18 year-old boy
from the West Coast, to respond with the following
comments:
[Rosaria], if you have read my posts, then
you would know that I totally agree with you.
However, I don’t see the public space as scary,
I see it as an opportunity. You have access to
millions of people. It’s only scary if you don’t
know what you’re doing, and once you realize
exactly the scope of a website, it’s easy to use it
properly for the best effect with minimal risk.
In his response, Jeff acknowledges the common ground
that he shares with Rosaria. He proceeds to explain
to her why it is that, despite his agreement with her,
he does not share her fear about the public nature of
online spaces. Excited by the opportunity to connect to
so many people online, he takes care to educate himself
about the websites he visits so that he can enjoy their
benefits while minimizing the risks. Exchanges such
as these illustrate how the Focus Dialogues engaged
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adults and teens in meaningful discussions that allowed
them to voice their distinct perspectives and become
aware of the common ground they share.
Discussion
Our findings offer insight into teens’ and adults’
patterns of moral and ethical thinking in online contexts.
Through our analysis of the Focus Dialogues, we found
that adult participants drew on moral and ethical ways
of thinking to a greater degree than teen participants
as they responded to various ethical issues concerning
online life. Compared to adults, teens exhibited a
higher degree of consequence thinking, as many of
their comments revealed a concern for their own well
being rather than the well being of others or the broader
community. To be sure, there were teens who provided
community-minded solutions and adults who displayed
opinions driven primarily by self-concern. Generally,
though, adults provided responses that reflected a
mentality of care for the online community and its
unspoken ethical code of conduct.
These findings comport with stage theories
of moral development, such as Kohlberg’s (1981,
1984), which claim that individuals’ moral reasoning
abilities become increasingly complex as they progress
through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood.
Specifically, the consequence thinking that was prevalent
among many teen participants bears resemblance to
Kohlberg’s early stages of moral reasoning in which
an egocentric view of morality dominates. The moral
and ethical ways of thinking that were found to a larger
degree among adult participants are consistent with
Kohlberg’s later stages of moral thought, which are
characterized by a shift in perspective from the self to
reciprocal relationships (moral thinking) and broader
social systems (ethical thinking).
Despite the differences we identified between
adults’ and teens’ responses to various ethical issues
concerning online life, our analysis of the Focus
Dialogues indicated that the two groups were able to
engage in genuine dialogue and find common ground.
In the first example we reported, one adult actively
sought teens’ perspectives on the persistent nature of
the material they post online. This discussion thread
generated dialogue between adults and teens in which
they shared with each other their concerns about the
persistence of online content and the strategies they
have adopted to manage their personal information
and protect their privacy online. In another discussion
thread, Jeff, a teen, found that he shared similar
perspectives with Rosario, an adult, regarding shifting
concepts of privacy. He used this common ground as an
entry-point to explain to her the basis of his views on
the opportunities associated with participating in online
life.
These findings suggest to us that the Focus
Dialogues may serve as a promising model for the
field of media literacy education (MLE) as it expands
its focus to take into account youths’ experiences with
new media technologies. Hobbs (2006) observes,
“educators and scholars are only just beginning to
develop instructional approaches that encourage
reflective, critical examination of the complex positive
and negative ways that digital media shape and structure
interpersonal behavior” (102). The structure of the
dialogues promoted the type of reflective practices
and critical analysis that MLE has emphasized from
its inception (Hobbs 2008). Moreover, the dialogues
provided opportunities for genuine, reciprocal
exchanges between adults and teens, a core pedagogical
approach of media literacy educators (Hobbs 2008). It
is often the case that adults point out the problems and
risks with media. The questions posed in the dialogues
provided an opportunity for adults to engage in a
more balanced conversation with youth in which they
explored both the risks and promises of digital media.
Such exchanges are well aligned with the expanding
vision of the MLE field. By engaging participants
in discussions around the ethical issues associated
with today’s distinct media landscape, the dialogues
addressed the types of concepts, such as co-operation,
trust, and self-disclosure, which educators and scholars
have begun to incorporate into the field of media
literacy education (Hobbs 2006).
Limitations
Certain methodological limitations of the
study should be noted. First, because the sample was
not drawn randomly, we are limited in the extent to
which we can generalize our findings beyond the group
of participants in the study. In particular, the gender
composition of our adult sample was skewed towards
women. This is not surprising, since Common Sense
Media, which spearheaded the adult recruiting efforts,
is connected to a user-base that consists primarily of
women. While recruiters made an effort to reach outside
their user-base, the final adult sample nevertheless
reflected this female bias. The teen sample was more
evenly balanced in terms of gender. However, the teens
introduced another form of sample bias, since many
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of them were recruited from technologically-oriented
educational programs offered by Global Kids. Thus,
teens may have participated more actively than adults
because they were more comfortable using computers
and were already familiar with the format of online
discussion forums.
Another drawback to the study design pertains
to our inability to probe participants’ responses more
deeply. The organizers of the Focus Dialogues purposely
did not insert their questions, comments, or voice into
the discussions once they began, believing that a too
visible presence would deter participants from open
and free discussion. Participants often asked probing
questions of others, or offered follow-up comments to
their own posts. While these contributions were helpful,
there were several comments made by participants that
we would have liked to explore in greater depth with
our own follow-up probes.
Lastly, it is difficult to determine the impact that
participants had on one another’s opinions. Participants
did not see a given discussion thread until after they
had entered their response to the related prompt.
Consequently, it is likely they had limited influence
on each other within a given prompt. It is possible,
however, that participants influenced each other’s
opinions over the course of the three-week period. It
could have been that, within a particular discussion
group, stronger voices to the earlier prompts influenced
the way in which other members of the group responded
to later prompts.
Conclusion
Acknowledging the study’s methodological
limitations, we nevertheless believe our findings
contribute new insight into youth’s digital media
practices that will inform the work of media literacy
educators. Historically, media literacy education has
been taught by teachers in formal school settings. Yet,
with the proliferation of digital media products in the
home environment (Scanlon and Buckingham 2004), it
seems that it is also important for parents to encourage
critical thinking about the moral and ethical facets of
online life with their children. To this point, however,
it appears that adults—both inside and outside the
classroom—have remained largely disengaged from
teens’ online experiences (Bradley 2005; Hobbs 2006;
Palfrey and Gasser 2008). As digital media become
increasingly interwoven into the many contexts of
youths’ lives, it becomes critical that they receive the
necessary supports to help them navigate the distinct
challenges that arise for them online.
While some adults may feel hesitant to broach
this aspect of teens’ lives due to a perception they are
less technically savvy, our research suggests that adults
demonstrate sophisticated ways of thinking about the
types of problems and questions that are authentic to
teens’ online experiences. Given this finding, we believe
more opportunities like the Focus Dialogues should be
created for adults to model for teens the types of moral
and ethical stances they need to become responsible
digital citizens.
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Appendix A: List of Prompts used in the Dialogues
Framed for users as a “Debate of the Day,” a new measure was made available each day of the project, for a
total of 21 days.
Day 1
Title: Life, Digitized.
Body:
Welcome to your first day in the Focus Dialogues!
Over the course of the next couple of weeks we’ll be exploring different issues relating to life in the digital
age, and providing the space for you to be in conversation with others in a way that’s safe and can let you in
on how people in the world are thinking about these things. Each day, we’ll have a different question that
greets you when you sign in, but we also encourage you to start your own threads! So, to start off, we have
something on the general side, about the shift to having a world of interaction online.
Questions:
Has going online to socialize with friends, play games, etc. added to your life? In what ways? How would
your life be different without the internet and digital media? What wouldn’t change?
Day 2
Title: The Positive and the Negative
Body:
Most people have a general inclination to avoid harmful things in the world and move towards things that are
positive. Obviously though, the world is full of both, and as the world moves online, people are experiencing
both positive and negative things on the web.
Questions:
Can you recall a time online when you observed or experienced something that troubled you?
Day 3
Title: Virtually You
Body:
The online world allows us to present ourselves in different ways, and even to recreate ourselves. Two young
people we spoke with shared the following thoughts:
I think when [people] create their Facebooks, they get to reconfigure their personality so that if they have any
faults they could just edit [them] out. And then they won’t have any problems showing themselves. I mean I
kind of think you have to meet someone in person to actually know them.
-18-year-old male
I basically sort of developed my current personality based on the game [Runescape]. Because people are really more free to be themselves or what they actually want to be. So, I’ve sort of learned how people reacted
to certain things I say and sort of built myself around it.
-15-year-old male
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Questions:
In what ways can it be fun or useful to experiment with your identity online?
In what ways can it be harmful to experiment with your identity online?
Day 4
Title: Digital Dilemma: Different ‘Paiges’ of Her Life
Body:
Consider the following scenario:
Jaime is in high school and is very active on Facebook. One day he decides to browse MySpace to see how
it compares. He comes across a photo that resembles a close friend of his named Paige, except that the way
Paige presents herself in this profile is somewhat different than how she does on Facebook and offline. In her
MySpace profile photo she looks a bit more edgy--kind of ‘goth.’ As Jaime looks further at Paige’s MySpace
profile and postings, some of the content differs somewhat from the image he has of Paige. Paige includes
links to poetry she has written, some of which is pretty depressive. Jaime doesn’t think of Paige as a ‘happygo-lucky’ kind of person, but this is definitely a more edgy side of Paige than he’s seen before.
Questions:
Why might Paige present herself differently online than offline?
Why might Paige present herself differently on Facebook than on MySpace?
Is it important that people’s online ‘selves’ be the same as their offline ones?
Day 5
Title: Sharing Ourselves With the World
Body:
Consider the following quotes from young people about sharing and connecting with others online.
‘My mom always uses the excuse about the internet being ‘public’ when she defends herself. It’s not like I do
anything to be ashamed of, but a girl needs her privacy. I do online journals so I can communicate with my
friends. Not so my mother could catch up on the latest gossip of my life.’
-17-year-old from danah boyd’s (2007) paper, ‘Why Youth (Heart) Social Networking.’
‘My LiveJournal is exactly who I am; it’s exactly what I’m feeling, exactly what I think about everything,
things that you don’t really feel like you can trust people to tell or that you can express to someone. Like if I
have a problem, it’s really hard for me to talk to someone face-to-face so, through there, I can just let it all go.’
-19-year-old female
Questions:
What’s fun about sharing information about yourself online? What do you see as the benefits of being able to
share with people in your life (friends, co-workers, etc...)?
Day 6
Title:
Digital Dilemma: Photo sharing on Facebook
Body:
Imagine that you are invited to party by a new friend Alex. You already have plans that night with your best
friend, Chris, but you really want to go and you don’t feel comfortable asking Alex if your best friend can
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tag along. You tell Chris that you don’t feel well and need to cancel your plans. You go to the party and have
a great time. The next day, you find that Alex (who is also your Facebook friend) has tagged you in several
photos from the party. You fear that Chris will see the photos and know that you had lied about being sick and
had secretly gone to a party instead of sticking to your plans.
Questions:
What would you do in this situation? (Would you ask Alex to remove the photos of you? Untag you from
the photos? Would you untag yourself? Would you speak to Chris who might have already seen the photos?)
Why?
What would you do if your child or student were in this situation and asked you for advice?
Day 7
Title: Boundaries in online ‘Friending’
Body: <n/a>
Questions:
What do you think about parents and teachers friending their kids on social networks? What are the benefits?
What are the challenges?
Day 8
Title: The Final Word?
Body:
The following questions are about Wikipedia, the online ‘free-content’ encyclopedia written collaboratively by
people from around the world. High school and college students say that they often use Wikipedia for school
assignments, although most say that they use it only as a starting point for their research.
Questions:
What are the benefits of using and contributing to a community-created information site like Wikipedia?
What are the difficulties and risks?
Have you ever been ‘burned’ using Wikipedia or another online source?
How do you decide whether or not information and websites you find online is reliable or not?
Day 9
Title:
Digital Dilemma: Sizing him up
Body:
Consider the following scenario:
Sixteen-year-old Sam loves to go on World of Warcraft (WoW), a multiplayer online role-playing game set in
a fantasy world that allows players from around the world to interact with one another through avatars (i.e.,
graphic representations of themselves). Sam’s parents have seen WoW and they think it’s a good outlet for
him since he’s kind of shy. One day, Sam mentions to his mom that he’s going to meet one of his online buddies from WoW in person. His mom is worried because she doesn’t know the person, but Sam insists, “He
graduated a couple of years ago from our high school and now works fixing computers. I’ve been friends with
him for a long time on WoW. He knows how to write his own computer games, so he can teach me. And anyway, my friends are coming with me to his place.”
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Questions:
Do you think Sam’s parents should let him meet this online friend in real life? If so, under what terms? If
not, why not?
Day 10
Title: Perspectives on Illegal Downloading
Body:
Illegal downloading is a very controversial issue today. What do you think about the beliefs that these two
young people have about downloading?
“I pirate a lot. I pirate everything. WHY? Because I don’t have money…[and] most of them have more
money than they could ever spend…I mean I love him, Eric Clapton [but] he has more money than God, and
I don’t think that he needs anymore. But, yet, if it’s a self-recorded, home-burned CD or an up-and-coming
band, I will support them. And I’ll buy the CD or movie if it’s an up-and-coming filmmaker. … [The recording industry] is way too harsh. I think they should lighten up a little bit. I mean, I understand it’s copyright
violation but, yet, I think somehow that the [music and movies] get more exposure through BitTorrent even if
they are downloaded illegally than if they were to be paid for. Because someone probably wouldn’t want to
pay $35.00 for a DVD, but yet, they’ll see the movie and maybe buy it.” (Trey, age 15)
“I kind a have my own morals about downloading…probably 90% of my friends download illegally still. I’m
not happy with it, but I know they aren’t going to stop. It’s still wrong…It concerns me deeply. Professionally,
musicians are losing their jobs because of this, and it is a staggering rate—the number of illegal downloads to
legal downloads is 20:1. It’s incredible. It is changing my life as a musician, it’s changing the music industry, it’s changing everything…I don’t think the recording industry should be doing what they are doing, suing
people for downloading 3 songs, or whatever. But I think we need to attack the source of these things—just
get rid of the programs.” (Carlos, age 22)
Questions:
What are your reactions to these two perspectives on illegal downloading? When is it okay to download and
share files? When is it not okay? Why?
Day 11
Title: Digital Dilemma: Who Owns My Photos?
Body:
Alison Chang, a 16-year old from Dallas, has a photo snapped of her and friends at a church fundraiser by her
church youth counselor, Justin Ho-Wee Wong. Wong posts the photo on his large public album on the photosharing site, Flickr. He marks the photo under a Creative Commons 2.0 Attribution license, which allows use
of the image by the public, including corporations.
An Australian advertising agency sees the photo of Chang on Flickr and decides that it fits perfectly for a new
campaign for Virgin Mobile Australia. Chang’s image soon appears on billboards throughout Australia.
The ads credited Wong and his Flickr account as the source, but did not get permission from Chang. When
Chang becomes aware of the ads, she responds that she finds the ad insulting. Her family soon files a lawsuit
against Virgin Mobile.
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Questions:
Was it fair of Virgin Mobile to repurpose this photo of Allison for an advertising campaign?
Virgin Mobile’s use of the photo was technically legal but should Allison’s rights and feelings have been considered?
Day 12
Title:
What does creativity mean in a digital age?
Body:
The video above takes footage from the classic superhero cartoon, Super Friends, and matches it with dialogue from the TV sitcom, Friends, to create a parody.
Creators have always found inspiration from other creators’ works. It is fairly common today for musicians
to sample from, remix, or mash-up other musicians’ songs. Digital media makes it easy for anyone to create
in new ways – to sample and remix content, to co-create with others near and far, and to share content with a
broad audience.
Questions:
What are the benefits, for young people and everyone, of these new opportunities to create? What are the
potential harms?
Are the meanings of being a “creator,” and of creativity and originality, changing because of digital media?
Does ownership mean something different today too?
Day 13
Title: Digital Dilemma - Life in the world of Games
Body:
Consider the following scenario:
For the past two weeks, you have been playing an online multi-player game that has about 30,000 members
and takes place in a 3-d world. Just yesterday, you joined a club within the game. Your fellow club members,
none of whom you know offline, seem very nice and have already given you lots of game advice as well as
some useful equipment for your character. Buying, selling, and trading such equipment with other players is
a fun and important part of the game, but there are few rules about trading, and exchanges don’t always end
well for some players. You’ve noticed, for example, that many of your club mates brag to each other about
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taking advantage of new players by selling them worthless green rocks, called pseudogems, for very high prices. After finding some pseudogems while doing a joint quest with two of your club mates, you are invited by
one of them to travel to a nearby town to try and sell the pseudogems to inexperienced players for a big profit.
Questions:
Would you go with your teammate to the nearby town to sell the pseudogems? Why or why not?
How does selling another player something worthless in an online game compare with…
Selling a physical item (such as a CD or tickets to a Red Sox game) to a schoolmate for more than its worth?
Selling an item for more than its worth through craigslist or ebay?
Selling an item for more than its worth in an online game where players can exchange in-game currency for
dollars?
Selling a property for more than its worth while playing monopoly?
Day 14
Title: Digital Dilemma - Cyberbullying
Body:
Consider the following scenario:
Something is bothering Josh. He’s been quiet and withdrawn lately. You suspect it has something to do with
the time he’s spending online, because sometimes he appears frustrated and walks away from the computer
abruptly. Concerned, you check the history of the web sites visited to see where he’s been online. He was on
MySpace a lot. One MySpace page was a profile that showed a picture of his head morphed onto a dog’s body
with some other degrading content. After your initial shock, it made you reconsider some of your views about
MySpace, but helped you to understand what Josh was experiencing.
Questions:
What steps should you take in this situation?
Who do you think it’s most appropriate for Josh to turn to for help? Parents? Friends? Myspace administrators?
How does cyberbullying show it’s face in your life, and how do you think you should respond? Do you know
of steps that people are taking to prevent cyber bullying before it happens?
Day 15
Title: Digital Dilemma - I hate Mr. Garrett
Body:
Consider the following scenario:
A bunch of 8th graders start a public group on Facebook about one of their teachers called, ‘I hate Mr. Garrett’. Several students join and began to write mean things about this teacher--stuff about him being ‘the worst
teacher EVER’ and being ‘awkward and dorky.’ The page comes to the attention of the head of school. She
calls an assembly of all 8th graders. She begins by talking about how small acts of cruelty (e.g., a racist remark) can balloon rapidly into huge societal ills like segregation, systemic discrimination etc.
Questions:
What do you think the consequences should be for the student(s) who created the webpage? How should the
students themselves respond? How about other teachers and parents?
How would the situation be different if Mr. Garrett was black, or gay, and the facebook group was used to
make racist or homophobic comments?
When does socializing and banter on the internet cross the line?
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Day 16
Title: What does it mean to be a responsible person online?
Body:
Participation in communities happens online as well as off, and there are ways that the two are similar and dissimilar, connected and unconnected.
Questions:
What do you think your roles and responsibilities are in regards to the online world and the communities you
participate in there?
How does your participation in this online world connect to your participation in the offline world?
Day 17
Title: A better world through... the internet?
Body:
Many have hailed the web as a new force in creating a more democratic, more equal, more socially conscious
and better informed world. Others don’t necessarily think that it can be significant in helping to solve the
problems the world is facing.
Questions:
How do you see the online world as a means to create change and better the society around you? What are its
limitations?
Are there things that you’ve already done online that you think make a positive contribution to your community, society, and/or the world?
Day 18
Title: The Generational Difference
Body:
Consider two quotes taken from a conversation here in FOCUS:
Sunny234 (adult)
The consequences of online cruelty, bullying or defamation should not be any different than when done in
person. When comments are made that are harmful to another person…teachers and parents, as appropriate,
need to be involved.
Anu30March (teen)
[There’s] nothing wrong in creating a group against a teacher you hate. You can share your experiences and
grievances about the teacher with others. Thanks to the internet, we have a place where we can express our
anguish!...Creating a group to vent your frustrations against a teacher whom most people dislike and who does
a lousy job is harmless. But making racist…or homophobic comments is never justified.
Regardless of your opinion on the issue being discussed in the quotes, what they do tell us is that there are going to be differences of opinion about the online world, and those differences can often happen more between
adults and teens.
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Questions:
What are the places where you think there is real difference or disagreement between adults and teens about
life online? What are the places where you think there is consensus?
Day 19
Title: What are you taking away from the Dialogues?
Body:
We’ve had three weeks of dialogues, and during that time have heard a lot of different views about the world
we live in, both on and offline.
Questions:
What are things that surprised you?
What have you learned?
What are you going to take back into your life from this?
What, if anything, might you do differently going forward?
Day 20
Title: The Question of Common Ground
Body: <n/a>
Questions:
Given the sometimes conflicting views that parents and teens have, is there common ground to be found in
terms of online behavior? If so, what should it look like? If not, why not?
How can common ground between adults and teens be achieved?
Day 21
Title:
Shout outs, Closing Thoughts and Favorite Quotes
Body:
We’re officially at the last full day of dialogues here at FOCUS, and we want to thank everyone for the incredible conversations that you’ve created!
You can use this thread as a place to give props and shout-outs, voice final thoughts, share favorite quotes or
threads, etc. Looking forward to seeing what you have to share!
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Appendix B: Excerpt of one discussion thread on illegal downloading
Evelyn (TEEN)
08:43AM Apr 22, 2009 EST
Pirating, illegal downloading, whatever you want to call it...in my mind, it’s just as much stealing as walking
out of Walmart with a cd that you didn’t pay for. Sure maybe the artist has “too much money” or something.
But does that give you a right to steal? I don’t think so.
Illegal downloading is something I am glad to say I have never done. I owned a couple copied cd’s for a
while. But my music is a huge enough part of my life that I am willing to pay for it!
April (ADULT)
12:39pm Apr 22, 2009 EST
I think that two very contrasting approaches have been given.
My personal view is nearer Carlos’ - as I’m not a real music fan; I tend to listen to talk shows on the radio &
rarely have the music on. (That said, when I do put it on, I think I ought to more often!)
However, I do have some audio books on an MP3 player that someone recorded for me; so I guess it’s the
same really as downloading them. But that’s all I’ve got.
From a TV point of view, I know that many people find it annoying that it’s not possible to (legally) access
things like the BBC iPlayer from outside the UK, or things like Hulu from outside the US. That’s more of a
difficult one; in the UK we have to pay a licence fee - but then you feel if you’ve paid it; you ought to be able
to watch iPlayer anywhere in the world. I guess sorting out authentication & tying people to licences (though
you have one per household, rather than one per person), could start to address that.
Equally, US feeds, which rely on US advertising, were I to watch them, I wouldn’t be likely to buy something
from the US - so the advertising is even more wasted on me than UK commercial channel advertising is!
NEIL (TEEN)
05:39PM Apr 22, 2009 EST
I grew up having any song or movie at my fingertips by just downloading it illegally. As a teen I don’t have
much money to spend on music and movies and so I just download them. Usually though I download things
that I had never intended on buying. I don’t understand why people are so uptight about it. I agree with what
mabel said about walking out of walmart without paying for the CD, but I probably wouldn’t have gone to
walmart to get that CD in the first place. I buy a good amount of movies that I want to keep on bluray, other
than that and a couple games most of what I have was downloaded. I’m just so used to it as being second nature that I don’t think I’ll ever stop nor do I really intend on doing so.
Radha (ADULT)
07:18pm Apr 22, 2009 EST
When people want to make a name for themselves they often give their product for free - Once they are
famous and have a market they can charge market prices. If the practice of downloading music could be
legitimised - like giving ratings to new artists it would create a way to pay the money to the artist and not the
middle man (i.e. publisher). It may be a way to make the technology useful.
Alistair (TEEN)
02:02am Apr 23, 2009 EST
Honestly I think it’s more of the person allowing it to be downloaded’s fault rather than the downloader.
Evelyn (TEEN)
09:26am Apr 23, 2009 EST
Ha! Yes! Definitely. There ARE ways to protect such things. However, if a woman on the park bench next to
me left her purse sitting there and I walk off with it, is it her fault that I stole it? Kind of! Ahhhh I don’t know,
I guess RL and the internet don’t quite match up a lot of times. :)
Cheryl (ADULT)
02:01pm Apr 23, 2009 EST
I have never pirated anything - music, software, movies. I don’t plagiarize. Ever. I have pursued relief against
people who have used my work without my consent. Last summer I battled a local not-for-profit for distributing marketing materials with quotes from my original spoken word. Even though they are a not-for-profit
and even though I am certain they meant to harm, those words were penned by me and they did not have my
permission to use them. My art was never intended for their marketing campaign.
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I’m a software designer and a writer. My intellectual property is how I earn my living. I think it would be really hypocritical if I pirated the work of others when the theft of my own works impacts me so deeply.
Eric (ADULT)
02:11PM Apr 23, 2009 EST
Pirating isn’t any less illegal just because it is easy to do. I agree that that laws about copyrighting and intellectual property are woefully out of touch with the new age of digital media, but until someone figures out a
better way to legislate this, we’re stuck with the laws we have. This isn’t a new issue. Teachers are some of
the worst copyright offenders, photocopying entire books, articles, and watching movies in school auditoriums
for recreational purposes, wrongly claiming “fair use” exceptions and giving the same reasons (I don’t have
the money, the publishers are making plenty of money, etc.). No one seems to get their shorts in a knot about
this despite its having gone on for years. I hope we aren’t supporting a double standard here.
Amanda (ADULT)
02:20pm Apr 23, 2009 EST
My 18-year-old son and I have debated this endlessly. My view is that it is no different than walking into a
store and shoplifting a CD. It is stealing. His view is that the person that made it available for download is
guilty of a crime, but he is not. At the very least, I think it is very unethical, and is unfair to the artists. However, since it is so commonplace, my son has very little money, and he believes the artists make enough off legal
downloads and sales, he will continue to do it until someone stops him.
Neil (TEEN)
07:37pm Apr 23, 2009 EST
ITguy: How can someone be a copyright offender for just showing a movie to a larger audience? I have never
seen a teacher with a burned movie and I’m not sure if you meant that teachers showed illegal copies of movies. Also, if a teacher photocopies an article, how can it be bad that they are using that article in class? I don’t
quite understand your reasoning.
Trevor (TEEN)
02:08am Apr 24, 2009 EST
In response to the comment that downloading is like walking into a store and stealing a CD, it really isn’t
anything like that because if I steal a CD from a store that store can no longer sell that particular CD as they
no longer have it however if I download a copy of a game the developer can still continue to sell the game
as if it had never been downloaded. Regardless of what the industry thinks or tries to make us think a download doesn’t equal a lost sale. It just means that it was downloaded. There are a few groups of people when it
comes to the topic of downloading; the group that will download it regardless of if it is worth the money, if
they can download it they will if not they will buy it, another group is the group that wasn’t going to buy it in
the first place, this group will only download it and shouldn’t be counted as lost sales because they had no intention of buying the product in the first place and if they can’t download it they just won’t have it and finally
the last group is similar to the second group but is unsure about it downloads it and then either buys it or not.
The rest of the people will either buy it or not and won’t download it. As a teenager who focuses on school
rather than getting a job I don’t have a lot of money to spend on games and stuff so if I download a game tend
to fall between the second and third group depending on the product.
Now on the topic of downloading TV shows, I download most of the TV shows I watch mostly because they
aren’t broadcast on any of the TV channels I have and because I’m in Canada I can’t watch them on Hulu.
One thing companies really need to stop doing is restrict websites by geographic location. The Internet spans
the entire world companies and countries need to get over this old mentality and move on. With the Internet
being global and near instant it really isn’t feasible to even try and control the flow of data across borders so
why even bother? If I can’t watch a TV show on a site like Hulu which has advertisements or so I’ve heard,
I’ll just go somewhere else which in this case happens to be a torrent site to download the same show except
without any advertisements. Now which sounds like a better idea let anyone anywhere in the world watch a
show with advertisements on a site like Hulu or block everyone except for a particular geographical area and
force the rest of the world to find somewhere else to watch the show which will most likely not have any advertisements. The same goes for anything really, if people can’t get it locally some will get it regardless even
if it isn’t legal.
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To put it simply until the content creators can either A. Create a non-invasive, non-intrusive, self-contained
and uncrackable copy protection(Which is impossible as if you make it they WILL find a way to crack it and
this does not include systems like the Awful SecuROM or Starforce Malware as it are neither non-invasive,
non-intrusive or self-contained as they use validation servers and background processes) or B. Figure out a
way to make their product good enough to make everyone want to buy it rather than download it. Also the argument that companies are losing money due to download isn’t really valid as if a company is going to release
a product they should be accounting for what they expect their sales and budget accordingly. It shouldn’t be
surprising or put a company into financial trouble if the ratio of downloads to sales is 20:1 if they knew that to
begin with. If a company has at least a rough estimate on that ratio and budgets according they shouldn’t have
an issue while I agree it would be nice if that 20:1 ratio was a 0:21 ratio but that just won’t happen and any
company that thinks it should be a 0:21 ratio is just being greedy.
Evelyn (TEEN)
09:06am Apr 24, 2009
Yes, you have a valid point there...the cd would be gone. And the downloads would still be available. But does
having an unlimited supply of something make it ok to steal it? Or is illegal downloading actually stealing
after all?
April (ADULT)
11:33AM Apr 24, 2009 EST
Nate asked: “How can someone be a copyright offender for just showing a movie to a larger audience?”
I’m not sure what ITguy was thinking of, but I would guess that he was thinking about videos/DVDs that state
in the blurb at the start that they’re designed for home use, and not use in public places. I’ve forgotten the exact wording, but certainly in the UK when you rent a DVD from the local DVD shop, it’s got wording to that
effect at the start.
I’ve not come across too many teachers photocopying whole books, generally it’s a section, which, (again,
I’m UK based so may differ in other places) - you’re allowed to, as long as it’s for teaching only & is less than
10% of the original.
For digital resources (e.g. academic papers) we’re not meant to save them as .pdf - we’re meant to just give
the students the link to the original site - and they have to read it on site.
That’s actually got some additional benefits ... if I download an article & make it available for my class of 200
students, the library sees it as one download, so wonders if it’s worth subscribing to that journal. If even 25%
of the class bother to read it (and, realistically, if they’re going to read it, clicking on a pdf link to download it
& one to the live site - won’t make much difference to them) - then that’s 49 extra reads ... so makes the journal seem more worth the money. (And, I live in hope that a few of those 25% might actually go & see what
else is in that journal & do some extra work!)
Lindsay (ADULT)
08:43am Apr 30, 2009 EST
I agree with Ivy and also feel that downloading without paying is unethical. I was surprised recently when a
friend offered to let me put some of her music on my ipod...I didn’t go into the whole moral issue of it, just
said no thanks.
We had no money in the 70s and 80s either, but I have a great memory of the first album I bought with my
own money (Rolling Stones’ “Tattoo You”)
Is it going to be a great memory, the first song you downloaded illegally?
My kids aren’t buying that much music yet, but I feel like I will look at this in a black and white way.
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Evelyn (TEEN)
09:21am Apr 30, 2009 EST
Oh wow what an amazing point! Lauramom, you are like me. To me, a cd is usually special enough to save up
for. It’s a big thing! I like good quality music and I am willing to pay for it! Because it is important to me.
Even though we live in a world that wants everything NOW and really cheap, some things still matter to some
people! Like ethics. And I’m thrilled to hear about someone else who absolutely will NOT participate in the
illegal download world. :)
That said, I would guess that most teens do it out of ignorance at first. Because all their friends do it. So they
start. And by the time someone points out that it’s wrong, well, it’s too late b/c it’s become a part of their lives.